Orthogonal Frequency Domain Multiplexing (OFDM) transceiver application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC), such as those used in wireless modems, often include a data collection function that monitors various components of the circuit and collects corresponding data for subsequent processing, often by an external processor. Typically, the collected data is statistical data relating to the performance of the respective components.
The ASIC's data collection function gathers information from internal processing units of the ASIC and forwards this information to a host processor for postprocessing. For example, system requirements may require monitoring relevant parameters of internal blocks, such as power, antenna gain, and the like, with the collected data being processed to determine whether fine tuning of the system is needed.
In order to achieve this data collection function, the prior art systems employ large amounts of on-chip memory (e.g., 12K (12,000) bytes) to store the collected statistical information within the ASIC prior to forwarding that data to the host processor for processing. This approach of using large on-chip memory to store collected statistics is undesirable because it increases the cost of the ASIC, and does not exploit unused regions of existing system memory.
Thus, what is needed is a system and method for efficiently collecting and transferring data from an ASIC or other like circuit to external system memory. The present invention addresses one or more of these desirable features.